Fly With Me
by Galadhwen23
Summary: "It was beautiful and terrible, joyful and grief stricken, old and new, and it was wonderful."  Angsty, but with a happy ending! I think.


_The curtains were drawn, the lights off, and if anyone were to wander this lonely street, which they seldom did, they would see no movement within the house. _

His body shook with sobs, tears pouring down his face, but he still could not express the overpowering anguish that had gripped him for such an unbearably long stretch of time. His knuckles white, gripping the sink with all his strength, still could not stop the violent trembling that had taken over his body. His breath came in gasps; every ounce of control had been used to keep his face blank, uncaring, cold, and he had none left. After an immeasurable amount of time the sobs and tears slowed, eventually stopping, but the heartache still held him in its iron grip, and he did not fight it, oh no, he had long since given up and surrendered himself to its inescapable claws.

Broken images flashed through his mind, threatening to burst through his fragile, unsteady control, but this was routine, this was customary, he was well used to the sharp knives of pain which raked their way through open wounds over and over again, refusing to let them heal, and he had long since accepted that they never would. He saw Lily's face smiling out at him from behind his eyelids, forcing him to let out one more sob. He looked up in to the mirror and saw his face. It was the face of a broken man; a face ravaged by grief and misery at the moment, and Severus Snape couldn't bring himself to care. Just as he was straightening, forcing his disguise back onto his face, a noise outside the bathroom window had him whirling around with his wand in the air. He let a snarl steal over his face, but he knew his menacing posture was compromised by the tear tracks glittering on his cheeks.

Lucius Malfoy's patronus soared through the glass, and Severus relaxed with a shaky huff, having only been halfway through forcing on his disguise when he was interrupted. Lucius's normally pompous voice told him haltingly that Voldemort had asked for him, so he threw up his Occlumency shields and smoothly swirled his cloak onto his shoulders. "No" he muttered as he swished his wand around his face in elegant sweeps, erasing the last remnants of his most recent breakdown. "The Dark Lord. Call him the Dark Lord, even when you're alone. Someone could be watching."

Severus walked slowly down the stairs, preferring to leave his house before apparating so he'd have time to gather his thoughts. This, too, was routine, and it only took him a few moments to force all thoughts of Lily behind his shields and replace them with the fake reverence he knew the Dark Lord expected. All too quickly he reached his front door, and, shutting his eyes, Severus sent a brief and wordless prayer up to Lily. His eyes stayed shut for a long moment, and he took a deep breath.

When they opened, they were a dancing inferno and an icy wasteland, a raging ocean and a tiny puddle. His eyes were calm and collected yet rage filled and wild. They burned, how they burned, and yet they died, too, and were already long dead. They were the eyes of a madman, and because of the ocean of pain and torture some greater power had decided to inflict upon him for all his life, his eyes were the part of his disguise that he had no need to fake.

Severus grasped the doorknob in front of him and stepped out onto the street, which was covered with a blanket of velvety blackness. Turning quickly on his heel, he hears a faint pop as the street spins away, and the last thought he lets slip through his shields before the peaceful boathouse spins into view is the irony of the situation; the last 17 years of his life have been dedicated to keeping alive the son of the woman he loves, and now he is being sent to tell him that he must die.

"_I think you know, Severus. You are a smart man. You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret what I must do._

_Nagini….. Kill."_

No, no, he must not die yet, no, he must find Potter—Oh, the agony, he cannot scream, he cannot defend himself, it is too late, and he has failed. Harry cannot win; Lily's sacrifice was for nothing—there! Potter, with Granger and Weasley! He feels the tears come, partially relief and partially pain, but he does not try to stop them, it is not a time for restraint now. Severus can feel the life leaving him. He is slipping into the numbness, but he must hold on, Harry must take the memories.

"_Take it…Take it… To the pensieve…"_

He sees the blurry shape of Granger rummage in her bag for a moment before holding out another shape, too blurry to name, with a quivering hand. He sees Harry take the shape with an equally shaky hand as Potter brings it closer to his face he recognizes it as a flask. It is pressed gently to his cheek for a few seconds before being taken away, and as his eyes roam the boy in front of them he can feel his already unsteady grasp on reality slipping even farther away from him. Panic begins to wriggle through him like poison; he must die looking into Lily's eyes. Would that be too much to ask, after what he has endured these last years? After what he has willingly sacrificed for the good of another, regardless of his own safety? Were his crimes too great, his sacrifices too little, did he deserve to die in pain with an image of the sole comfort in his life so close and yet so far away from him?

He must see those eyes, those beautiful green eyes, Lily's eyes… and when the glittering emerald green orbs suddenly found his everything became clear for a moment before fading down to a fuzzy black. The sounds around him stretched and distorted and the floor beneath him crumbled away, leaving him floating senselessly now in void of Nothing. It crept around him, whispering in his head, telling him to let go, but he drew up a burst of energy he was unaware he had to gasp out his last words.

"_Harry, look at me… You… have your mother's eyes."_

Severus let the life within him slip away and felt the Nothingness seeping into him, and he felt himself becoming Nothing with it, until the face of his beloved burst into his mind with impossible clarity. He felt that he was flying, the wind whipping his hair back and filling him with a joy beyond words. An achingly familiar hand held his and the smell of an achingly familiar shampoo drifted back to him as he felt hair tickle his cheek, and Severus was only halfway through wishing he could see when his eyes let themselves be opened.

He flew among millions of tiny pinpoints of light that were the stars, and the blackness of space was filled with swirls of color, half of which he had not known existed. Time had no meaning as planets flashed by, which zoomed out to solar systems, which faded out to galaxies, and then the whole of the universe stretched before him and Severus saw like he had never seen before, his perception of time and space endlessly expanding. The universe; it was beautiful and terrible, joyful and grief stricken, old and new, and it was wonderful.

And though the cosmos in their entirety lay stretched out around him, his eyes lingered on them for only a moment before they were drawn to the woman beside him. She smiled, emerald eyes sparkling, and gave his hand a squeeze. She glanced out at the endless expanse before them before turning to face him fully and leaning in to rest his forehead against hers, and her eyes bore into his and her breath tickled his cheeks as Lily spoke.

"Fly with me, my Severus. Fly with me and see the stars."

Severus smiled.


End file.
